FOURTH NIGHT

On a winter evening many years subsequent to the above-mentioned occurrences, the ci-devant shepherd sat in a well-furnished office in the north wing of Shakeforest Towers in the guise of an ordinary educated man of business.  He appeared at this time as a person of thirty-eight or forty, though actually he was several years younger.  A worn and restless glance of the eye now and then, when he lifted his head to search for some letter or paper which had been mislaid, seemed to denote that his was not a mind so thoroughly at ease as his surroundings might have led an observer to expect.

His pallor, too, was remarkable for a countryman.  He was professedly engaged in writing, but he shaped not word.  He had sat there only a few minutes, when, laying down his pen and pushing back his chair, he rested a hand uneasily on each of the chair-arms and looked on the floor.

Soon he arose and left the room.  His course was along a passage which ended in a central octagonal hall; crossing this he knocked at a door.  A faint, though deep, voice told him to come in.  The room he entered was the library, and it was tenanted by a single person only—­his patron the Duke.

During this long interval of years the Duke had lost all his heaviness of build.  He was, indeed, almost a skeleton; his white hair was thin, and his hands were nearly transparent.  ‘Oh—­Mills?’ he murmured.  ’Sit down.  What is it?’

’Nothing new, your Grace.  Nobody to speak of has written, and nobody has called.’

‘Ah—­what then?  You look concerned.’

‘Old times have come to life, owing to something waking them.’

‘Old times be cursed—­which old times are they?’

’That Christmas week twenty-two years ago, when the late Duchess’s cousin Frederick implored her to meet him on Marlbury Downs.  I saw the meeting—­it was just such a night as this—­and I, as you know, saw more.  She met him once, but not the second time.’

’Mills, shall I recall some words to you—­the words of an oath taken on that hill by a shepherd-boy?’

’It is unnecessary.  He has strenuously kept that oath and promise.  Since that night no sound of his shepherd life has crossed his lips—­even to yourself.  But do you wish to hear more, or do you not, your Grace?’

‘I wish to hear no more,’ said the Duke sullenly.

’Very well; let it be so.  But a time seems coming—­may be quite near at hand—­when, in spite of my lips, that episode will allow itself to go undivulged no longer.’

‘I wish to hear no more!’ repeated the Duke.